I have to admit it just wasn’t one of my favorite sitcoms. For some reason I just couldn’t get into it. I’ll give it its due though, as I did not realize it lasted for 9 seasons. That’s quite surprising to me.
I like it best when it's Blair, Tootie, Natalie, Jo, and Mrs. Garrett and the girls are all still in school. So I guess that'll make me most partial to Seasons 2 through 4. I've watched the later seasons too, and I do like the "Reunion" episode they did that brought back the girls they lost during the second season shake-up, but the earlier seasons were best. When I think about THE FACTS OF LIFE, I think about them all being in school together, not adulting together and running a "hip" store.
I like how you broke this all down for us into a more cohesive format to see the transitions and "revamps" of the course of nine seasons.
I think it wins the record for most the most revamps of a single sitcom. The first season took place in the dorm of Eastland School, with Mrs Garrett as a housemother supervising seven girls.
The first was really a mess, cluttered with far too many characters for a half-hour comedy. Charlotte Rae was a highlight, sure, and the girls that eventually got carried over (i.e. Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, and Mindy Cohn) were good, but the rest of them just seemed like too much. Too many personalities that crossed over and in some ways paralleled one another. And that first season theme song was awful!
After the first season, the location moved to the school cafeteria, with Mrs Garrett now the school dietitian supervising four girls (including three carryovers from the previous season) on probation, and they helped in the kitchen.
This is the set-up I think about when I think of THE FACTS OF LIFE in my mind. These was the glory days of the show. Once they thinned out the cast and brought on Nancy McKeon as Jo, the cast just rounded out better. With fewer girls occupying the screen time, each of the four girls they decided to focus on brought a distinct personality to the table, and Mrs. Garrett was there managing it all. Hilarity galore!
Then there were a few seasons where the girls are older and live with Mrs Garrett above her gourmet food shop and work there.
Having the girls grow up, still live together, and still be friends was good for sentimental reasons. Audiences that followed the show and looked at these characters as part of their family and circle of friends wanted to see them stick together and go forward with their lives. On a more logical note, however, the characters would've eventually drifted apart as their personal and professional lives drew them all in different directions. As close of they all were, it isn't reality for four maturing women to continue to live together with the overseeing of a "housemother" (and this is from a viewer who is an avid viewer of THE GOLDEN GIRLS and has been for years).
And the last few seasons have the girls working and living with Mrs. Garrett’s sister at a gift shop, along with a couple of street urchins (one Australian). Very weird.
Yeah, I think "weird" basically sums up this phase of the show. I've never been a major fan of Cloris Leachman (not even on MARY TYLER MOORE from a decade earlier), so she definitely makes me miss Charlotte Rae if ever I watch an episode from those final seasons. Maybe if they had let the girls go it alone it would've worked better, but then I guess the title of the show wouldn't have made much sense.
They also attempted a fourth revamp, with Blair back at Eastland running the school - now co-ed - and supervising a new set of kids, including the Australian urchin from the previous season. But NBC chose not to continue it.
This revamp seems like the most functional way they could've kept the show going after Season 9. But the network wasn't really interested. Charlotte Rae had already bailed, I don't think they really wanted to keep Cloris Leachman around, and Nancy McKeon and Mindy Cohn both wanted out. Lisa Whelchel seemed very content on staying, and Kim Fields probably would've had the offer been right, but NBC was weary to continue a show that was already nine years old, had declining ratings, and continuing cast shake-ups. I suppose it was smart on the network's part to cut their ties with a show that had served them well. Perhaps they just didn't want to completely run the show in the ground before calling it a day.
Alan Thicke and Gloria Loring wrote the theme song, I believe. Yeah, that Alan Thicke.
Facts of Life wasn't quite as heavy-handed in its "messages" as Diff'rent Strokes, thankfully, and in the later years was more of a show about the relationships between the characters rather than "message of the week". It was thoroughly ridiculous that the girls/women would continue to live together (even sharing those tiny rooms) after they'd graduated college and were still running that novelty shop, but you could overlook a lot of that as "sitcom necessity".
Yeah, THE FACTS OF LIFE weren't as involved in the "very special episode" gimmick as shows like DIFF'RENT STROKES and MAUDE. But they did push it sometimes. I'd agree that I liked it better when they left the "messages" out of it. I don't watch sitcoms to see points being made.
